55 marketing influencers: How brands should use virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality

VIRTUAL, AUGMENTED, AND MIXED REALITY:
HOW SHOULD BRANDS USE THESE TECHNOLOGIES?
“
Robert Scoble | @Scobleizer
I'm a futurist at Upload VR and one of the world's authorities on mixed reality.
Every brand needs to have an AR strategy. I doubt your
company has one. So you need to hire a team of strategists
who understand VR and AR. Or build a lab. Those who are
out when Apple brings along the iPhone 8 (or at least have
a strategy to announce) will get a PR win. Users will start
expecting brands to have mixed reality experiences in
2018. The big money will show up in 2020.

“
Bryan Kramer | @bryankramer
Bestselling Author, Keynote & TED speaker and CEO
The challenge in any technology is in
delivering quality storytelling with an
educational and entertainment approach
versus sales.

“
Tamara McCleary | @TamaraMcCleary
International branding expert and Thulium CEO, Tamara McCleary is ranked by
Klear in the Top 1% of global Social Media Influencers and is Top 50 Social
Influencer of 2016 by Onalytica, ranking Top 10 AR, Top 25 AI/Machine Language,
Top 50 Big Data, Top 100 IoT Influencer in 2016.
Mixed reality is opening an opportunity to show versus tell customers.
Mixed reality is here and it's ripe for the taking as innovative companies leap forward
capitalizing on what we've learned from Pokemon Go and the lengths people will
travel to merge their reality with illusion. I think everything from grocery shopping and
experiencing where the produce comes from by plucking your oranges off the visual
overlays of trees in the supermarket to Google Map overlays onto the street you are
physically standing serve to create a more personalized connection between
customer and brand.
Brands poised to harness MR are positioning themselves for the next big disruption.
This isn't the future … this is now.

“
Stewart Rogers | @TheRealSJR
Journalist, analyst, and speaker for VentureBeat and VB Insight
I asked consumers about mobile VR and even at this early stage in the game, I was
surprised at the level of response. 62% have already tried, or want to try, mobile VR
experiences. These "low-end" VR games, movies, and more will drive "high-end" unit
sales for Sony, HTC, and Facebook's Oculus.
So the time for VR marketing is now, not in the future. Brands can leverage the
opportunity through amazing, emotional content. Whether as a trailer experience
injected ahead of another VR movie or game, or a branded mini-experience within a
related property, through product/brand placement, or a fully created and owned
piece of original content, brands can no longer wait to see if VR is becoming the next
big thing. It already is.

“
Travis Wright | @teedubya
Marketing technologist, author, keynote speaker, VentureBeat podcast host, and
mediocre stand-up comedian
Brands should be building customer
experiences. Don't just do product placements
inside of a VR experience. And for God's sake
please no in-app VR popup ads. Innovate and
do something massive to the platform that
people want to experience and share.

“
Jesse Stay | @Jesse
Futurist, Author, Founder and Principal of Stay N Alive, a digital marketing and advertising agency
Brands need to be getting ready - by end of 2017
VR and mixed reality will be much more
mainstream, and all brands will need to have
experiences built and ready for this. The world
around each customer is now the brand's
canvas.

“
Michael Della Penna | @mikepenna
Entrepreneur, Mobile/Marketing Advisor, Investor.
Every company will soon have a physical and an augmented
component to their brand experience. Brands should look
for "moments" where VR/augmented and mixed reality offer
up an opportunity to create value and/or improve the
customer journey or experience. One great example is
Sephora's use of VR makeup, which allows consumers to
try on different looks/colors without the mess before making
a purchase in store.

“
Redg Snodgrass | @Redgsnodgrass
CEO of ReadWrite
Brands should spend as much as 10-20% of R&D on
implementing this tech in marketing, interacting, and
engaging with consumers. Yes, I'm serious. Also pay
particular attention to Google’s acquisition of
Eyefluence. It's been a core technology needed to be
adopted widespread for this tech to be adoptable.
2017-2019 are your prep years.

“
Joel Comm | @joelcomm
New York Times Best-Selling Author, Social Influencer, Keynote Speaker and Futurist
VR will become consumer grade for
entertainment purposes and reasonably
priced by late 2017, while AR will take on a
larger role in real-world applications such as
medicine and construction/interior design.

“
Dylan Tweney | @dylan20
Founder of content agency Tweney Media and former VentureBeat/Wired journalist.
Cautiously. VR and AR technologies are exciting but also
incredibly resource-intensive. There are enormous
problems with cross platform media compatibility, so if you
make content for Oculus, for instance, it's not necessarily
going to be easy to port it to an iOS experience. For the
near future, the vast majority of AR/VR users will
experience it via phones, not dedicated headsets, so
unless you're a videogame maker, focus on phone
experiences.

“
Ray Walia | @raywalia
Managing Partner at Victory Square/CEO of Launch Academy
First: brands will use VR/AR/MR to connect to customers and
audiences not typically immediately accessible. For example
current successes with live feeds of VR for NFL and NBA games
will expand to more international sports, events, and concerts.
Second: VR/AR/MR will be used to add additional layers of
engagement for customers and audiences, for example
SnapChat Glasses view from actors and performers backstage at
concerts, award shows, athletes at games, in training, off season.

“
Thomas Husson | @Thomas_Husson
Vice-President, Principal Analyst at Forrester
Consumer adoption of VR headsets will remain niche in
2017 so brands should cut through the VR hype and first
assess the propensity of their customers to use new
technologies. Then they should assess the fit with the
brand: mostly relevant for aspirational brands selling
highly experiential and digital offerings (e.g gaming,
entertainment) or with a complex path to purchase (new
showroom for cars, homes or vacation).

“
Ian Sefferman | @iseff
GM, TMC, TUNE
Rather than think about the different
technologies themselves, brands should be
thinking about how they can morph
themselves into technology companies. The
implementation of that will decide which new
technologies will suit them best.

“
Douglas Karr | @douglaskarr
Founder of the Marketing Technology Blog, CEO, Speaker, Author
Augmented reality will bring us a step closer to the
virtual showroom where we can interact with
objects 3 dimensionally rather than via images.
That enhanced experience will drive both retail
and online sales as the experience of online and
offline move closer to one another.

“
AR is a mass market, VR is a gaming platform.
VR will have some specialized uses but only AR
is a mass market.
Brands outside of gaming and some experience
brands should do AR, not VR.
Tomi T Ahonen | @tomiahonen
Author of 13 books and consultant in tech focusing on mobile

“
Chris Messina | @chrismessina
Developer Experience Lead at @Uber; invented the hashtag; former Googler.
To inspire and educate, to stimulate and
serve. Rather than taking a conventional
advertising approach, what kinds of new
and existing *experiences* can be created
using these technologies to serve people?

“
Go slow. These tools are still in beta and many
consumers are not embracing it as they should.
Only use these tools in 2017 if they can directly tie
your consumer closer to your business goals.
Otherwise wait at least one more year before
diving in.
Serena Ehrlich | @serena
Director of Social and Evolving Media for Business Wire.

“
If your product or service is an "experience" you
better be working on these now. If I sold vacations
or cruises, I'd be figuring out how to use VR to let
prospects test drive a vacation. Identify how you
can deliver a better sales and education experience
with these technologies, they can really build trust.
Aaron Weiche | @AaronWeiche
I'm the CMO of GetFiveStars, entrepreneur, digital marketer and speaker.

“
Pascal Clarysse | @PascalClarysse
Pascal Clarysse has been in marketing for almost two decades, he is presently CMO at large for Eden
Games and he consults for a bunch of successful mobile game publishers.
At the time being, mostly for marketing
stunts, PR, and branding.

“
Dulce Baerga | @dulce303
Tech blogger, full stack dev, augmented reality & virtual reality dev. Pioneer of new realities.
Brands should use VR/AR/MR very carefully and contextually. Using a
reality tech as a gimmick or for the sake of the tech will only make a
brand look silly or clueless. Reality tech is powerful and extremely
persuasive; users can easily be fooled into thinking something is real …
Placing ads like billboards or pop-ups will break the experience and
make a user feel disconnected. Brands will have to figure out clever
ways of integrating their products into experiences seamlessly.
Product placement in subtle ways, or through machine learning/AI
techniques will have more of an impact on the user in the end.

“
VR is a stepping stone to AR, the ability to
enhance everything you see with Internet-
based data. Think about what data you have
that can be tied to physical objects and
locations.
Sascha Segan | @saschasegan
Lead Analyst at PCMag.com

“
More rich interactions. VR provides 360 degree
experiences for customers in a convenient
location that’s fun and interactive. Marketers can
leverage these interactions to provide more
value or showcase offerings, reducing costs on
the rest.
Randi Priluck | @professorrandi
Author of Social Media & Mobile Marketing Strategy from Oxford University Press

“
Everything short of full immersion will be the
norm as brands increasingly want to overlay
their presence into consumers' lives. Smart
brands will be able to walk the fine line
between being an invited guest and an
unwelcome intruder.
Tony Long | @TonyCultEx
I am known as "Geek Whisperer"

“
Sarah Austin | @SarahAustin
AI expert and entrepreneur
Shopping!

“
VR, AR, and mixed reality are obviously set to
increase in popularity throughout the next few
years.
Brands must learn how to adapt their
content to leverage these technologies and
better tell their story.
Hillel Fuld | @Hilzfuld
Co Founder of ZCast, tech blogger covering Israeli tech, and startup advisor.

“
Phil Gerbyshak | @PhilGerb
Phil Gerbyshak works with salespeople and leaders to increase their impact, influence
and income by connecting technological solutions to their business problems.
I'd recommend brands use them to be part of other's worlds instead of creating their
own that they have to invite people to.
Brands should create things that augment existing experiences and surprise and
delight people. Few are using these well but those who do and who will be
handsomely rewarded.
I also recommend they identify people inside their organization to be the digital
ambassador and let them play with influencers, to aid in awareness and use of the
product or service by taking these online methods and connecting them to offline
experiences at conferences and trade shows.

“
Esteban Contreras | @SocialNerdia
VP of Product
The rise and fall in popularity of Pokemon Go is a big deal. We should expect
new ways in which AR will show up on our phones, inspired by this renewed
interest in overlaying graphics over our camera displays and our physical
locations. With Microsoft, Meta, Magic Leap, Samsung, HTC, Sony and
Facebook Oculus all doing interesting things, we can expect new platforms,
networks and UIs to become commonplace in the near future - but it is still
very early. Brands should experiment with a specific goal in mind - and with
the aim to create high quality experiences on spaces that warrant it. Never
experiment just to experiment. Always focus on the basics: 'Who are we
and who are our customers?'
.

“
Albert Einstein Renshaw, Ph.D. | @Valuable
22y/o; I've been in business longer than I haven't.
Everyone should abandon virtual reality and only focus on mixed reality.
Augmented reality contains within it virtual reality. An AR system can easily
make its entire field of view opaque and then it is VR. VR is like a car engine
and AR is the entire car including its engine ... Nobody wants to sit in a room
all day using an application, humans are on the go. That's why mobile phone
use is beating out computer use even though computers have a much wider
range of applications. VR keeps you sitting in a room, AR takes you
everywhere, including sitting in a room.

“
Josh Bernoff | @jbernoff
Thinker; author of Writing Without Bullshit
For now, it's about experiments. There are
not enough users -- or mature enough
applications -- to build any brand activities on.
But it's coming. Soon.

“
James Cameron | @jamescameron
CEO of Masterclassing
Aside from the gaming and entertainment sectors, I think
we will see more progressive brands making VR plays in
2017. Travel, automotive, luxury and real estate sectors
all have logical potential for product focused rather than
marketing focused offerings, while the retail and CPG
market will continue to use VR and AR more for both in-
store and live experiences as well as immersive
campaigns.

“
Manish Patel | @manishologies
Patel is the founder and CEO of Brandify, a local marketing technology platform that helps over 500
multi-location brands connect with local customers.
It's all about enriching and creating the most
remarkable user experiences. VR, AR and mixed reality
can add another layer to the in-store shopping
experience by serving as a mode of in-store research.
The data and user preferences gathered from these
augmented experiences can be used to engage users
online after they leave stores.

“
Todd Haselton | @robotodd
Executive Editor of TechnoBuffalo
Carefully, certainly don't rush these products
because I think, more than ever, the first
impressions will really matter. VR can make
you feel sick, AR can feel cluttered. Take the
time to do it right before putting it in front of
people's faces.

“
Rob La Gesse | @kr8tr
VP of Social Strategy, ten years in Social Media. Ex-coder.
Sparingly. These technologies are not widely
in consumer hands yet. Using these
technologies will remain very niche
throughout 2017.

“
Aaron Strout | @aaronstrout
CMO of W2O Group. Writer in his spare time for Marketingland and Waze Blog.
There is a real risk that every company rushes to have some use
of AR, VR or MR in their product or application. And while many
companies will benefit, most will execute these technologies
poorly thus running the risk of turning off consumers en masse.
Like any other technology, AR, VR and MR will be best used when
a well-defined business case is laid out (like using VR to show
parents of autistic children what it's like to be autistic -- or using
AR to help pedestrians navigate to hard to find places).

“
Sarah Wallace | @sarah_wallace
Research Director at IHS Markit covering artificial intelligence in the communications industry.
Brands should introduce virtual, augmented and
mixed reality in a way that is user friendly. For
instance, makeup stores that allow users to test lip
products by using facial recognition software
directly in their app. Brands must keep things
simple if they want these technologies to become
ubiquitous.

“
Justin Bougher | @SiteSpect
VP of Product at SiteSpect, Inc.
Augmented reality will be used most in the short term …
There is no doubt that AR and AR are going to be important customer experience
tools. Goldman Sachs states VR/AR will be an $80 billion market by 2025. However,
its greatest potential is that it creates an immediate emotional reaction and that is the
#1 indicator of great customer experience. Retailers need to tie life events and micro
moments to to AR and VR. Already retailers are using it for travel, home improvements
and real estate but think about the opportunity for back to school shopping, wedding,
gift registry and other life moments. These have great emotional pull and VR/AR can
provide the emotional customer experience needed to sell and keep customer
coming back.

“
Oliver Schonschek | @OSchonschek
Technology Journalist and Analyst, Germany
VR, AR and MR are perfect technologies to
combine the digital and physical business.
Digital companies should use it to come even
closer to their customers.

“
Martin Wilson | @indigo102
Specialist in: Digital strategy, Performance marketing, Mobile and Commercial development.
Brands should not simply jump on the bandwagon.
The reality environment will become the next big
media but that is 3-4 years away. Brands should be
looking to understand and define the strategic value
that this media can deliver. Only then should they start
to consider the approach and data requirements to
support.

“
Chris O'Brien | @obrien
European Correspondent for VentureBeat, based in France after 15 years in Silicon Valley.
They should continue to experiment to find
best use cases, but be cautious about over-
investing at this point. Wider mainstream
adoption is not so clear at the point.

“
Ayaz Nanji | @ayaznanji
Digital strategist, data nerd, and co-founder of ICW Content
Brands should start experimenting with these now.
Large-scale adoption may take longer than some
predict -- there are still a lot of tech and experience
issues to work out -- but VR/AR will eventually be
mainstream. Humans have always gravitated to more
engaging experiences.

“
Martha M | @m3paservices
Marketing Consultant
Self help and information still rule. If brands
can use these technologies to show that they
can offer value to the consumer’s life using
these tools, they will win more consumers and
gain revenue.

“
Helen Keegan | @technokitten
Specialist consultant & event organiser in mobile advertising & media;
These are all very different things so it depends how you
define these. With virtual reality specifically, I say proceed
with caution. Headset sales have yet to show breakthrough
figures.
The rest can be done on phones and should be
investigated for usefulness or entertainment - but only used
where it makes brand positioning or commercial sense
above and beyond experiments.

“
Kelly Mullins | @kellymullins
Been around the media block more than once.
I just don't see virtual going mass market. Good for
gamers … but I don't see people strapping phones to their
faces at scale. Augmented reality, however, will find
uses in terms of mapping, retail, and gaming.
Developers will find ways to use the PokemonGo
experience to add value to shopping and traveling.

“
Wendy McClelland | @wendyweb47
Internet early adopter, social media strategist, business coach, author and professional speaker
So many opportunities here. A combination
of great technology used to tell emotion
based stories will engage consumers. The
continuation of "gamification" of both
everyday tasks and complex applications will
ramp up even more.

“
Jonahkai Hancock | @jonahkai
I am a Director of Marketing at TUNE - I manage our paid, customer and nurture marketing teams.
I think some of the augmented reality is more likely to
happen, although full-on virtual reality will have some
amazing applications in fields such as medicine, training,
etc.
For marketers, I think mixed and augmented reality are
the best surefire bets in the coming year since they are
on the mobile device.

“
Peter Fodor | @petrfodor
Mobile marketer who is always seeking to change the status quo and improve things to the perfection.
Adoption is fairly low these days and it won't become a
mainstream thing in 2017.
My suggestion is to use new technology for brand building,
events, fairs, and for experiments. Several businesses might
come to interesting use cases and it's good to understand the
potential of the technology. But don't aim for monetizing the
investment in a short term.

“
Peter Hamilton | @Onein7bn
Digital education veteran. Founder of EdTech Ventures
Beware the hype curve. Uses will be
specialised with high production costs initially.
These high end uses will show us the way.

“
Eric Seufert | @eric_seufert
Owner, Mobile Dev Memo, Heracles
Overhyped. I'd suggest most brands stay
away.

“
Ayelet Noff | @AyeletNoff
Ayelet Noff is the Founder and CEO of award-winning PR Firm Blonde 2.0 with
offices in Tel Aviv and Boston.
Brands should find find a way to utilize these technologies in a
way that is valuable to their end users/consumers. For example, a
store should offer customers the ability to see how they would
look with clothing items in the store. A travel agency should
enable its consumers to 'experience' what their vacation
destination would 'feel' like. Brands need to be careful to utilize
these technologies in ways that are meaningful to their
consumers and not only serving the brand's own agenda.

“
Heike Scholz | @mobilezeitgeist
Founder of mobile zeitgeist and FUTURE OF SHOPPING
All these technologies are great ways to
engage with users. They are direct, emotional
and fun. Brands should look for the best
usability in a given context. Sometimes less is
more and brands should avoid
'technological overkill.’

“
Tom Heiser | @ClickSoftware
CEO of ClickSoftware, the leader in field service management solutions
Arming technicians with augmented reality wearables such a
smart glasses can transform customer service. Imagine if a
telephone pole went down outside your house and the technician
servicing the transformer could see its specs, service history and
upgrade instructions without having to sacrifice one of their hands
to pull out their mobile device. All of a sudden, service time drops
from four hours to 40 minutes, because the smart glasses
enabled a more seamless repair experience.

“
Mikael Cho | @mikaelcho
Founder/CEO at Unsplash (Unsplash.com) and Crew (crew.co)
Many industries are poised to be disrupted by VR, but education seems
to be one that's most likely and significant.
VR experiences can build practical skills by immersing us not only in
knowledge but in the tasks themselves.
While many virtual reality experiences and companies have focused on
fitting existing concepts into a virtual space, brands that create original
experiences specifically for virtual reality will be the ones who stand out.

“
Danan Margason | @dananmargason
VP of Operations, General Counsel at TUNE
All of these new technologies will slowly be built into mobile
devices, especially as processing speeds increase. Within 3
years, high-quality VR will be possible on most new mobile
devices, and thus VR will become ubiquitous. The HTC Vive
already has a strong and engaged user base via Steam (and
Oculus to a lesser extent); advertisers should look for
opportunities to engage with this powerful new medium and
be part of the evolution.

“
Nick Fajt
CEO of Against Gravity, maker of Rec Room for the HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
VR - You'll continue to see premium brands do location-based entertainment (headset with
custom software setup in a place consumers can visit). A few brands will be able to partner
with the early VR entrants. Very few big brands will develop their own VR app. They'll
continue to hang back until the hardware numbers hit a critical mass.
AR - Snap [Snapchat] will continue to push the field forward with consumers. Pokemon
Go copycats will be plentiful (not realizing that it was Pokemon and not AR that made that
app a phenomenon). AR & Snap remain the best way for the average brand to interact with
consumers, as it’s the only one with scale.
MR - Microsoft will continue to extend their tech lead with HoloLens. Magic Leap will start
working with developers. Other MR hardware startups will be relegated to also-ran status, as
capex becomes prohibitively high. VR headsets will embrace video pass through for MR-like
experience.

“
Sean Patterson | @seanpatterson
Thunderbird MBA, startup funder, CMO for Worldcore
Alternative reality approaches need to be carefully
measured for effectiveness. Done properly, they can
enhance the user experience. You can imagine an FMCG
company using augmented reality to guide you to their
products within a store, for example. Click on the one in
front of you and you could get the product info even in a
different language, or even a special "hidden" discount.

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